


21

by luckysam78



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Acting, Actors, Alternate Universe - Actors, Angst, Break Up, Coping, F/M, Fame, Hollywood, Post-Break Up, Reader-Insert, Songfic, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-07 16:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckysam78/pseuds/luckysam78
Summary: summary: (based on the song 21 by jenna holiday) fame isn’t as enjoyable as you imagined it to be with your history of a failed relationship with one of Hollywood’s biggest starsWarnings: breakup, alcohol, minor family conflict, angst





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist (listen while you’re reading this fic!):
> 
> ♔21 by Jenna Holiday
> 
> ♔Not So Bad in LA by Allie X
> 
> ♔Angel on Fire by Halsey
> 
> ♔Dying in LA by Panic! at the Disco
> 
> ♔Not What I Meant by dodie ft. Lewis Watson
> 
>    
> disclaimer: i’m not directly accusing all tom stannies of being snakes or fans of being bad fans i'm just addressing certain behavior

‘Singer and songwriter Y/N celebrates another birthday, but there are no invitations to the party’

‘Is Y/N hosting a birthday party at all?’

‘This Hollywood starlet is the first in many years to spend a birthday without a party! Read all about it!’

Sighing frustratedly, you set down your phone, tired of all the click-baity news headlines. It seemed like you had been appearing on headlines more frequently nowadays, and worse, not in the way you wanted to. Everybody believed that you were going to make it big in LA with your peppy pop songs about love or heartbreak, but they didn’t know what the price of fame was.

You started off like any other pop star: a regular person who had a talent and passion for art, specifically music. By the age of 9, you were already composing songs on the piano and while nobody encouraged you to continue or applauded you for doing so, you continued to use that skill to craft bolder, brighter songs. Through YouTube, you gained fame and became recognized for your iconic songs.

You had trouble moving to LA since your parents doubted that you were going to be successful. They had assumed that you were going to college, getting a stable job, like a lawyer or a doctor, and move in with a husband, living a normal, middle-class life. But once you showed them how popular your videos were, they reluctantly agreed to let you move to LA.

At the age of 17, you moved in with your aunt and pursued your dream. It wasn’t as easy as you expected because while you were famous on the internet, few people in real life recognized you. A couple of times, people came up to you and asked you for a photo or asked you to sign one of their belongings but you were yet to be invited for an interview or an event.

Fortunately, you didn’t give up hope. You had come this far and there was no turning back now. Continuing to create songs with minimal motivation was difficult, yet you still persisted despite all the odds. Your aunt seemed to believe in you as much as your parents did, which came as no surprise since she was a forty-year-old single woman with smoking habits and one too many piercings. Luckily she didn’t care much about you so you were able to write songs in a peaceful environment.

While you gave credit to your song ‘valentine’s day for singles’ for your popularity, you truly acquired success through your song ‘wish u weren’t here’. It was a song you wrote on a rainy day, while the sky was rumbling with furious thunder and you wrote it about the gloomy insecurity of never being successful. Ironically, this song topped the charts and earned you several interviews with famous TV shows and invitations to open for concerts.

In fact, that’s how you met Tom Holland. You were opening for a band called Siren Screams and after you performed the set, you went to the dressing room to get a drink of water before watching the band perform. One of the band members, Darley, walked into the dressing room with somebody very familiar.

“Darley, am I dreaming? Or did you just bring Tom Holland into our dressing room?” You dropped your hairbrush in shock, hurrying over to the boy Darley brought. His face flushed pink as you greeted him with an altruistic grin and handshake. “I’m such a big fan of your acting! Even though you only got small roles in movies, you portray them so well! I mean, your acting in ‘The Impossible’ was truly breathtaking”

“Thank you so much! I’m actually a huge fan of your songs! Darley’s an old friend of mine and when I heard you were opening for her band, I sort of freaked out. She brought me here to meet you so here I am,” Tom explained, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, feeling quite embarrassed to be fanboying over you in front of you. His words made you comfortable with your confession of admiring his acting skills.

“So what are you doing in LA? I thought you lived in London?” You asked, hoping it wouldn’t seem weird that you knew where he lived (Wikipedia was the website to blame for your extensive knowledge of celebrities).

“Oh, I’m here doing an audition for this really cool role. I can’t tell you what it is though. I got to keep my lips sealed,” Tom made a motion of pulling a zipper across his lips, causing you to giggle at his dorkiness. You talked with Tom for hours about being a rising star in Hollywood and the struggles of being one. When he had to leave, you got his number from him and promised to meet him again.

At the age of 19, you began working on your first proper album and hung out with Tom whenever you could. He accidentally revealed to you that he auditioned for the role of Spider-man in the upcoming Marvel movie and you promised to keep the secret, imitating the zipper-closing-lips motion he did when initially talking about his audition. You found a manager who encouraged you to stay in touch with Tom, claiming it would make good publicity. After a year of subtle flirting and hear-eyes, Tom decided to make the first move and asked you on a date to a local coffee shop.

On your 20th birthday, you kissed him for the first time and it was magical because you both were sharing a cookies and cream ice cream and his lips tasted of that flavor. You both managed to lay it low and kept your relationship casual. Both of your managers pressured you two to make your relationship public but with Tom preparing for the release of new Marvel movie and you preparing for the release of your album, the pressure was too much to bear. However, you did accept his offer on moving into an apartment in LA together.

Eventually, your relationship with him was revealed when somebody saw you two kissing at a local Starbucks (that was on you; it was a risky move that you made). You thought that you would be able to handle all the pressure now that you were 21 but it was much more intense than you expected.

Even though you put yourself in the spotlight with by making music, a different spotlight shone on you. Suddenly, your comment sections were filled with remarks from Tom’s fans, some accusing you of dating him for the ‘clout’ while some were supportive. The amount of interview offers skyrocketed because now that you were dating the actor who played Spider-man, you were thousand times more interesting.

As the need for Tom to spend more time acting for the upcoming Spider-man movie, the pressure to continue writing music was creeping up behind your back. You were trying to consistently write music but it had been difficult to lately since all the stress was draining the inspiration out of your soul. The worst part was that both you and Tom had been so preoccupied with your jobs, you barely had time to talk about the elephant in the room.

Finally, on a weekend where both of you had the Sunday off, you decided to sit down and talk. You both agreed that the pressure was immense right now and that your relationship was straining because of it. You decided to admit, “Nobody ever told me how fame works. I’m just a little caught up and confused in this new world.”

“Don’t worry, it’s scary for me too. We’ll figure this out together. Things might seem unstable right now, but we can work through this together,” Tom placed a reassuring hand over yours, causing you to smile with new found hope. Said hope was lost a week later when Tom came back to the apartment past midnight every night due to last-minute reshoots.

Tom spending too much time at his job resulted in an increased sense of anxiety in your systems. You turned towards music to comfort you, but soon, music wasn’t enough to ward off invasive accusations from snake-tongued fans and paranoid thoughts. You kept the act up, convincing everybody that you and Tom were perfectly content with your current lifestyle but underneath that cover, you were cracking. When Tom announced that he was going on a press tour, that was the last straw for you.

“That’s it Tom. I can’t handle it anymore. You’re always gone, we never get to spend time with each other, and I’m so tired of your fans ruthlessly attacking me. I can’t help feeling this way! It’s like my life is completely out of my control and spiraling off its train tracks. I can’t even make music anymore because I’m constantly stressed about maintaining a pristine public image,” You tried to explain your feelings calmly but they bubbled out of your eyes as teardrops. He seemed shocked at your words and silence filled in the empty space after your explanation.

“I know you’re feeling stressed right now and I am too, believe me. Being a celebrity is difficult and it’s hard to handle. Maybe we should take a break,” Tom suggested, looking down at his shoes so he wouldn’t have to see your reaction when he dropped the bomb on you. You attempted to grasp the words to respond but in your shocked state, your muscles seemed to stop functioning.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Tom suggested as he reached past you to grab his suitcase. You wanted to shout or scream or doing something, anything at all, to prevent him from leaving with those words dangling in the air. Yet, your body stopped obeying to your brain and you stood motionless as you watched him walk out of the apartment.

When he was gone, you finally snapped back into reality. Agony poured out of you in heavy, body-wracking sobs as you packed all your belongings as quickly as you. You could barely see what you were throwing into boxes through your tears and memories painfully flashed across the backs of your eyes as you sifted through belongings you and Tom shared.

You stayed at your aunt’s place for a couple of days as you searched for an apartment to rent and called Tom constantly. He never picked up the calls so you only heard his voicemail. Eventually, you gave up on attempting to contact him when you moved into your new apartment. Gossip spread like wildfire and in no time, people heard about the disastrous break-up.

You never talked to him again but recently, you saw a video of him and his new girlfriend, less than a three months after you two separated. While Tom’s acting career flourished, your popularity was slowing down. You had a couple of hits on the radio but your new songs weren’t as successful as your old ones. Worst of all, you were alone and had no trustworthy friends or family members to turn to. Your parents were surely going to laugh in your face if you tried talking with them.

Reflecting on your questionable past on your 22nd birthday was the worst choice, but then again, all your choices were horrible. All the reporters assumed you were having an ultra-exclusive, invite-only birthday party when in reality, you were celebrating your birthday alone. You received no happy birthday texts from anybody and the world seemed to have forgotten you completely.

As you stood in front of your bathroom mirror, holding a bottle of liquor where a plate of cake should’ve been, you gazed into the haunted eyes of your reflection. Only a couple of years ago, those eyes were filled with hope for a better future and now, those eyes were as empty as a cold cave. Your mind was cluttered with thoughts but the one that stood out while you were staring at your reflection summed up the last year: “you’ve been asking since you turned twenty-one, am I still having fun?”


	2. Chapter 2

Was it impossible for you to write another catchy riff in your life? Possibly. Your manager and agent had been pressuring you for months (or weeks? You spent so much time holed up in your room trying to make good music that time didn’t seem to exist) to write a song that topped the charts and made you relevant again, but it seemed like your songs, in terms of ratings and streams, always fell flat of their expectations.

Everybody romanticized being a music artist and having a huge role in the media, but failed to recognize the tremendous pressure to stay relevant and the fact that people constantly brought up your past achievements. Everyday, you saw at least three comments on social media that stated something along the lines of “when are you going to make good music again? You used to be good and what happened?” and at least five comments that stated something along the lines of “what happened between you and Tom?”. Being famous meant no matter how hard you tried, your past was going to be constantly held against you.

Your hope for success was answered that day when suddenly, as you were plucking away at your guitar strings, a catchy riff popped into your head. Without hesitating, you mimicked the melody in your head with the guitar and soon, you had the basic beginnings of a catchy song.

After you recorded the melody, you listened to it on repeat, writing up lyrics. The words seemed to twirl into existence on the page, the ink coming to life with the sounds of your thoughts. When you finished, you looked at what you looked and realized that you had written all your feelings about your career down.

“How is possible for people to fall for this devious trap called fame? Aspiring artists wonder when people will promote their name because once you enter you can’t withdraw. This is why Hollywood created so many empty headed dolls,” You sang out loud, smiling as you finished. This was one of the best, authentic songs you had written in a long time.

When your manager first heard the song, she immediately adored it. You headed into the studio and worked with a couple of producers to record and make the song. Of course, the song-creating process always took a long time but your song “Hollywood dolls” was finished relatively quickly. You were nervous to see how people reacted because the song was more abstract than what was considered a typical pop song, but people seemed to enjoy the song quite a lot. Soon, the stream numbers went up and people began sharing the song across social media.

Miraculously, your inbox began piling up with emails of interview offers and other sorts of deals. Among those deals was a movie director, reaching out to ask you if you were interested in a role in her upcoming film. She explained that the role needed to be filled by a musician as the story would be centered around a rising star. Your manager agreed that this would benefit your public image and outreach so you accepted. Of course, you had to audition and such, but the director seemed to be set on casting you. Fortunately, in elementary school, you went to an acting camp and had learned some basic acting skills from there.

To be honest, you knew little about the film and felt severely unprepared to take part, but you pushed away your worries and decided that the famous Hollywood motto “fake it ‘til you make it” could be applied to this situation. Once you were cast, you were informed that you would have to attend a table-read later on with your costars. For some reason, most of the movie was kept under wraps, which meant you had no idea who you would be acting with.

Finally, the day of the table-read came and you were excited and nervous to see who you would be working with. You were terrified that you would be working with a super professional actor, like Johnny Depp, and your acting would be scrutinized, but then again, you would be able to improve your acting skills. You arrived at the table-read with an outfit you hoped would seem calm and collected.

Everybody arrived at the table-read and introduced themselves, their profession, etc. Some people were stoked to meet you and told you about how much they adored your songs.

You met some of the actors that you would be working with but you didn’t see the costar the director claimed you would be working with anywhere in the room. Everybody sat down at the table with a script in hand and you noticed there was one empty seat. The door abruptly swung open and a person quickly hurried in, apologizing in a crisp, British accent, “Sorry I’m late. I had to attend an impromptu meeting with some people. I promise it won’t happen next time.”

You looked up from your script and almost dropped the packet when you saw that your co-star was Tom Holland, the boy who broke your heart. He wore a simple t-shirt and smiled sweetly at the people around him, shaking hands. Tom still hadn’t noticed you yet as everybody seemed to be eager to introduce themselves to somebody more famous than you. When he finally had space to himself, he picked up the script and looked up from it, coincidentally meeting your eyes. You quickly looked down at your script, blatantly ignoring him, hoping that if you pretended you didn’t notice him, everything would be fine.

Then, you realized that you had to talk with him because if he was your co-star, you would have to communicate through the script. And as you read the script out loud with him, awkwardly avoiding making eye contact, you were not pleased to discover that the movie was partly focused on the romance between your character and his character. You were a pro at concealing emotions (all media stars had to be) so you were able to convince the director that you had no problem with this set-up at all while you read through the script with Tom.

The director didn’t detect any hint of awkwardness between you two and after a read-through of the script, she offered updates on the movie production process, like how the costume design and set design was going and such. You tried not to zone out while she discussed all the nitty-gritty details but if you paid too much attention to the present, memories of Tom were going to flood your head again. You noticed Tom staring at you and quickly tried to appear as if you were listening intently instead of letting your mind wander.

After the reading, everybody stood up and the room began to buzz with conversation. Tom stood up from his chair and was clearly trying to make his way over to you but since you sat next to the door, you exited the room before he could get a chance. You power-walked to your car, taking one quick look around you to make sure nobody was following or watching before getting in and driving back to your apartment. When you arrived in your apartment, you called your manager, explaining the whole situation with Tom.

Your manager agreed that it might not be the best idea to be seen with your ex-boyfriend, but this movie would help your public image so you just had to grit your teeth and get through the film. The first day of shooting came too quickly and you were not as eager to be part of the film as you used to be.

Makeup and costumes covered up your emotions and you managed to push away your emotions away as you acted out the role you had. Tom also noted the objectivity of your expression and acted his role too. The story was a high school romance between a radio station host’s son and a shy musician who was waiting for a moment to shine. While the movie sounded cheesy, there were other aspects of the story that made the movie unique. The movie also touched on social problems that contained a ton of social stigma.

Tom was more talented than you remembered and you hadn’t watched any of his movies since you broke up. You only forgot a couple lines, but other than that, filming went smoothly. The tension between you and Tom in between takes was unnoticed by the cast and crew and while Tom clearly tried to make conversation by asking shallow questions, you always ended the conversation before it had a chance to start. Finally, after the first day of shooting, Tom talked to you. You were on your way out of the studio and you were about to get into your car when Tom ran towards you. Since you had turned a cold shoulder to him the majority of the day, you decided to give him one chance to talk to you.

“Hey y/n. I know things are rocky between us, to say the least, so I just want to make it clear that we have to keep things strictly business only. What’s in the past is in the past,” Tom firmly stated his tone unwavering and minimal emotion in his voice. For some reason, him saying those words aloud made you realize how truly over your relationship with him was. Although you were aware he was seeing some other girl now, you still held onto a little fragment of hope that you still had a chance with him. Now, that fragment of hope was crushed into pieces smaller than grains of dust.

“Yeah, I know. Business only,” You echoed, nodding as you tucked a loose piece of hair behind your ear. You offered a tiny smile to show that truly nothing was wrong and that everything was perfectly fine. Tom visibly relaxed and smiled back, releasing some of the tension between you two.

“Okay, good. See you around,” Tom walked away, putting his hand in the pockets of his jeans. You remembered his habit of doing so and your smile widened for a second before you forced any emotion you had for him down your body and got into your car. As you drove back to your apartment, your phone exploded with noisy notifications and buzzes but you ignored them, knowing that no matter how urgent the situation was, you had to focus on driving. Once you got back to your apartment, you checked your phone to see what all the commotion was.

It turned out that some fan of Tom had caught the moment where he was talking with you after shooting and the media immediately exploded with news articles claiming that you were trying to get back with him again despite him having a girlfriend. Somehow people had found out that you were going to work with him in the movie and accused you of only taking the movie deal to get back with Tom. You panicked and called your manager, wondering what you should do to combat these rumors. Your manager reassured you, informing you that these rumors usually died if you didn’t address them and that the best thing to do in these situations was to wait out the storm. You checked Tom’s social media and noted that he didn’t address any of these rumors either and decided to keep quiet as well.

The following days of shooting gradually got less awkward as you made it clear to Tom that you weren’t trying to steal him from his girlfriend. It took a couple more days and love scenes for you and Tom to get comfortable with each other. You were able to let yourself laugh at Tom’s jokes and talked to him about your life. Of course, you two avoided the topic of your breakup but you both acted like you both were friends again. More photos of you and Tom filming together were posted on the internet and since many of the scenes in the movie were romantic scenes between you and Tom’s characters so taken out of context, it looked like you and Tom were back together again.

Fending off the hate sent by his devoted fans was tiring and it got to the point where fans were warning you to stay away from him. Even worse, somebody sent you a death threat because of all the photos of you and Tom, which, luckily, turned out to be nothing more than a harmless, frustrated extremist. Halfway through shooting the movie, you realized how much you missed Tom.

You missed hanging out with him, cuddling with him, and all his silly, dumb jokes. You missed his voice, his hugs, and his smiles. You missed his clumsiness that contrasted with his flexibility. In general, you simply missed Tom. But you couldn’t admit it or else things between you and him would return to being uneasy and awkward.

As shooting began to finish, Tom introduced you to his girlfriend who had returned to Los Angeles after her modeling gig in London. She was really sweet and admittedly, she and Tom were perfect for each other. You understood why he fell in love with her and respected his opinion completely. At first, filming the movie didn’t mean so much to you, but at the wrap party, you realized how fun shooting the movie had been. You didn’t want Tom to tell that something was off with you during the wrap party so you just tried to stay in the moment, but when it was over, you left the party without looking back, knowing that you were finally parting ways with Tom Holland.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr[@luckysam78](https://luckysam78.tumblr.com/)!  
> here is [my tom holland x reader masterlist](https://luckysam78.tumblr.com/post/177107753741/peter-parker-x-readertom-holland-x-reader)


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